Harassment, intimidation reported across nation but Houston fares better than most

Trump's election sparks flurry of intimidation

Midwestern State University nursing student Richard Brown was one of about 70 students who came out to stage a peaceful protest against hate, intolerance and president elect Donald Trump, on campus Wednesday afternoon in Wichita Falls, Texas. A smaller group held signs supporting Trump/Pence. (Torin Halsey/Wichita Falls Times Record News via AP)

Photo: Torin Halsey, MBO

An India-born scientist walking through the Texas Medical Center was berated by a panhandler who told him he'd be glad when Donald Trump started deporting foreigners.

A San Antonio mother crying into her cell phone about her mother from Mexico was told by a stranger that he'd be sad, too, if he had to be deported.

And a Dallas-area teen - an American citizen of Asian descent - reported that a teacher at his high school told him that she was glad Trump was kicking his kind out of the country.

Hateful harassment and intimidation have surged around the country since the Nov. 8 election, with more than 400 cases reported nationwide, including at least 30 in Texas, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups and related incidents.

Reports also included anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic and anti-woman incidents, and use of swastikas, hate group recruitment or pro-Trump sentiments in vandalism or other incidents, the law center reported this week.

There were also 20 reports of anti-Trump intimidation and harassment, the group reported.

The reports of incidents appear to be dropping, however, since the election. More than 140 incidents were reported on Nov. 9, the day after the presidential election, but the numbers dropped steadily each day until fewer than 20 were reported nationwide on Monday.

The Anti-Defamation League in Houston said it is tracking the situation but is trying to determine how many complaints are legitimate before releasing numbers.

"We are monitoring this," said Dena Marks, associate director for the ADL in Houston. "If it does happen, we want to hear about it. Our goal is to keep people safe and respectful."

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, meanwhile, said it began sending letters Thursday to superintendents of schools in which there have been alleged hate incidents, reminding them of their obligation to prevent bullying and offering educational resources.

One letter sent Thursday alerted the Archer City school superintendent in far North Texas that students had been chanting, "build a wall," and holding up a "Come and Take It" flag at a high school volleyball game against the mostly Latino Fort Hancock school district.

"It will spread to other parts of the nation," Celina Moreno, an attorney for MALDEF's southwest region, said of the letter campaign.

'Our destiny'

The Council on American-Islamic Relations in Houston reported it has not seen an increase in hate-related activity, and the FBI and Houston Police Departments say they have no received no reports of hate-related crime since the election.

Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg said it makes sense that Houston has not had many hate incidents.

"Houston has been a city of immigrants for 30 years now, so we've had a real chance to get used to this," he said. "There is a real feeling in Houston that this is our destiny, and it is not a bad thing."

Klineberg said that Rice has been tracking attitudes about race for 35 years and that results increasingly show that most people think the city's diversity will be a source of strength and that immigrants strengthen rather than threaten the city's well-being.

Still, he said that when it comes to Latinos, women and gays, there is real fear that Trump's election will turn back decades of advances.

'Choice of words'

Kartick Venkatachalam, the scientist who was berated by the panhandler after refusing to give him money, said the incident came just moments after a divided discussion with colleagues about whether there had been an increase in racial clashes.

He said he's been cursed before in other American cities for not sharing his change but that this was a different type of anger.

"It was a choice of words," he said. "The fact this happened establishes, at least in my mind, that there is a huge swath of this country which - incorrectly or not - thinks they can get away with this stuff."

Helen Montoya, the San Antonio mother, said she's lived in the Alamo City for 20 years and never had an incident like she did sitting outside a Starbucks there.

She said that "emotions had gotten the better" of her as she discussed some of her concerns, admittedly in a loud voice, about Trump and how he might impact children today whose parents are from Mexico.

After she regained her composure, and started to walk away, she heard a stranger say, "I'd be sad, too, if I had to go back to Mexico."

Montoya said she thought about ignoring him, but instead turned around and challenged him to repeat his words to her face. He did not and walked away.

Montoya said that although she considers herself a private person, she decided to share the encounter on Facebook.

"I trembled then as I tremble now just writing this because I was angry but also because I'm tired and frightened," she wrote.

Student Austin Ngo, who attends high school in the Garland School District, said he left school in tears after a teacher told him Trump was building a wall and would deport him.

The remark hit home for Ngo, a first-generation American whose mother was born in Vietnam and father in Thailand.

He reported the incident the next day at the urging of his brother, but he said he could see himself making peace with the teacher.

'Careful assessment'

The district said the matter has been investigated but would not reveal the result.

"We always take it seriously and want to make sure our kids feel safe and protected at school, but we just don't discuss personnel issues," Garland School District spokeswoman Mida Milligan said.

Rachel Godsil, co-founder of Perception Institute, a New York-based social science research organization, said that anecdotally there appears to be an increase in incidents as the lines between social media and what is happening in the streets is blurred.

The challenge now is to determine if there is an increase in such activity or just a perception of growing tensions.

"The group that types in social media in all caps is actually in public proclaiming views out loud and expressing them toward people they see," she said, "and this is obviously scary."

Still, Godsil said it hit home for her when a man on her block punched a woman in the face over Trump.

"That would have been unimaginable two weeks ago," she said. "Careful assessment is in everyone's interest. That is something that has to happen."